I came across this video quite a while ago, after falling head over heels for the brilliant piano piece called “Every Day” that accompanies it. The music is by Brooklyn-based Carly Comando, whose Myspace page lists over 380,000 plays for this song despite the fact that she doesn’t seem to have released a CD — or any other songs.
The music is everything a piano piece should be and so much more, and the video offers an eerie look at how a man’s face changes over six years. The series of still photos, always posed the same way, are somehow both haunting and wonderful, and while hairstyles, stubble and background furniture fly through his life, his stare is the only constant.
Watching this, I found myself wondering who this guy is, what he does for a living, what he does for fun… I wonder which of those days were uplifting for him, or miserable. Maybe his girlfriend left him. Maybe he got fired, or found the job of his dreams. Six of those days were his birthday — did he have anyone to celebrate with? Either way, the day flits by for us in a split second — in a flickering picture, you might say — and six entire years of a perfect stranger’s life are compressed into less than six minutes of video. Brilliant.
Incidentally, Carly is working on an album, and has promised to let me know when it comes out. I’ll keep you posted.
3 responses so far ↓
1 B // Apr 25, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Hmmm… Very interesting, but I cannot say that his face has really changed that much. I almost feel like he could have managed the same effect by facing a camcorder while staring into a desk fan.
Taking a picture with the same positioning and stare every day for all those years certainly shows commitment, but this is one of those examples that makes me wonder about the idea of art. I sometimes consider where the line lays between art and bizarre crap. I usually comfort myself with the conclusion that art is, of course, subjective and then immediately move on to something else.
The music is very interesting, but strikingly similar to something you’d expect on the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack (specifically Season 3). Those of you who watch it will know exactly what I am talking about.
Art?
2 mark // Apr 25, 2008 at 1:14 pm
For some reason, this video really hit me, and I found it genuinely haunting. I actually watched it a couple of times, and found myself really wondering who this guy is, what he does, what his life is like, how he was feeling on a given day…
It builds bridges between people, as well — at least insofar as it has me wondering about the life of a perfect stranger. To me, that’s a primary function of art, and it’s exactly what I wanted this a site to be about.
You can’t define art any more than you can define beauty, but for me at least, for reasons I can’t entirely explain, this is both.
3 Asher Vijay // Apr 27, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Wow.
And to Mark, when you say, “you can’t define art more than you can define beauty”, actually, I’m afraid you can… I don’t dare to say that it can be done fully, but it can definitely explain a few things…
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